APPENDIX. THE various points of inquiry, which are merely glanced at in this Appendix, the writer has not yet enjoyed the opportunity of investigating to the extent he could have wished. He at taches, therefore, nothing of that importance to them which is generally felt when any favourite theory is to be defended; and if, by those who are more conversant with these subjects, he should be found incorrect in any particular, this will neither affect the argument of the preceding pages, nor weaken our obligations with regard to the present race of the Native Irish. Among the learned men who have studied the subject of European antiquities, there seems to be but one opinion with regard to the quarter from whence the great body of her po pulation came. They all profess to discover a rolling tide proceeding from the east,-wave following after wave,—the weaker giving way to, or pushed forward before, the more powerful; and though to point out the abode of all the Nomade tribes in given periods may be beyond the power of human research, yet writers of the most opposite opinions agree in regarding the most westerly as the most primitive or ancient nations. First in the possession of the soil, at the very dawn of history we see them first disturbed, and never having been entirely destroyed, remnants of them still remain. Without any discordance of sentiment, we may advance at least one step farther. The indications of three distinct and successive populations are generally recognised by all the best authorities-two pervading the western and northern regions of Europe, and the third its eastern frontiers. These three, according to various authors, are the Celta, the Goths or Scythians, and the Slavonians; or the Celta, the Teutones, and the Sauromate of Dr Murray. i Without multiplying authorities, or proceeding farther back, it may be remarked, that Dr Percy, the bishop of Dromore, in the year 1770, distinctly marked two of these-the Celtic and the Gothic,-a distinction recognised by Mr Pinkerton notwithstanding his opinions respecting the former. To these the third is now generally added, the Sarmatian. Other nations more recently entered, but these are the main sources of the ancient European population. It is to the first of these three, confessedly the most western division of this great European family, that our attention is here directed. Upon opening the map of Herodotus by Major Rennel, we find the Cynetæ and Iberi on the western shores of Europe, and immediately behind the former at least the Celta. The repeated assurances of Herodotus, that, although in his time the Celts had spread from the Danube to the pillars of Hercules, there was another nation still farther west, called the Cynetæ or Cynesii, accounts for this distribution on the map. "These Celta are found beyond the columns of Hercules; they border on the Cynesians, the most remote of all the nations who inhabit the western parts of Europe;" and, referring again to the Celta, he adds,-" who, except the Cynetæ, are the most remote inhabitants in the west of Europe.' Strabo, when referring to the Cantabrians, mentions the Cantrabi Conisci.' Festus Avienus, in the beginning of the fifth cen tury, or about 870 years later than Herodotus, notices the Cynestes, as a people inhabiting the border of Spain and Portugal. In many later writers we read of those who are called the Cunei, and in the Welsh triads we meet with a people denominated the Cynet. Modern authors have not entirely overlooked this ancient and primitive race. Beyond the Celtic hordes," says Townsend, " in the utmost extremities of Europe, towards the setting sun, the Cyneta (Kumra) either fed their flocks, or more probably were to be numbered among the 66 Herod. Euterpe. 33. Melpom. 49. Paris, 1620. + Strabo, lib. IIK p. 162. Ed + Ora Maritima, 200. hunting tribes.* "places a people, whom he calls Cunesioi, beyond the Celts.† In the history of European languages by Dr Murray, while he ranks the Native Irish under the general term of Celta, he uniformly speaks of them as the most primitive division-the original stem which had penetrated in the earliest ages into the west of Europe. "Herodotus," says Mr Sharon Turner, But the Iberi as well as the Cynetæ are placed by Herodotus on the western shores of Europe. Now Dionysius Periegetes (verse 281), about the commencement of the Christian era, mentions them in the same position : On Europe's farthest western border dwell And Strabo, in his description of Gaul, confirms the statement of Herodotus, that the Iberians were a separate nation from the Celts. Speaking of the inhabitants of Gaul, seemingly with reference to the account which Julius Cæsar had given of them half a century before, he says, "Some have divided them into three portions, denominated Aquitani, Belgæ, and Celtæ ; but the Aquitani differ from the rest entirely, not only in language but in person, and resemble the Iberi more than the Celtæ. As for the others, their appearance is Celtic; their language is not wholly the same, but in some respects varies a little; in government and manners they are nearly alike." The other inhabitants of Gaul, here contrasted with the Aquitani, seem to evince that Gaul as well as Spain was anciently occupied by people of two distinct nations, of which the more eastern were the Celta, the more western the Iberi and Cynetæ. With regard to Britain, Cæsar affirms, that "its interior part was inhabited by those who were immemorially natives of the island, but the maritime part by those who had passed thither from the Belge intent on predatory hostilities.§ Tacitus, a century later, says, that those who dwelt "nearest to the Gauls resembled them," but that "the brown complexions * Townsend's Character of Moses, &c., vol. II. p. 62, + Hist. of AngloSaxons, 3d ed., vol. I. p. 40. Strabo, lib. IV. p. 319. See Greatheed's Inquiries respecting the Origin of the Inhabitants of the British Isles. Archæologia, vol. XVI. part I. p. 98. De bello Gallico, lib, V. cap. 10. and curling hair of the Silures intimated that the ancient Iberians had passed over from Spain, and had occupied that part of Britain."* The Iberians, however, had certainly stretched into Aquitain (according to Pliny formerly called Armorica), and it is possible that the emigration now referred to might be from Gaul rather than Spain. The connexion between the early inhabitants of Ireland and those of Britain will be again referred to; though here we may observe, that, notwithstanding the fables with which it has been intermingled, the Irish tradition, which states their ancestors to have come from Spain, appears worthy of credit. Even the sceptical may admit this as likely to account for part of its inhabitants, as it is not inconsistent with the certainty that there were other emigrations. In giving these brief and imperfect notices of the primitive populations, it seemed expedient not to overlook the denominations given to the most western, though they are by most writers only glanced at and then dismissed, or lost in the general term of Celtic. Though in the present stage of inquiry into the original populations of Britain, and the western shores of the European continent, some will hesitate to admit the entire theory of Mr Greatheed in the Archæologia, it is at least possible that the scattered rays of evidence may even yet lead to the conclusion, not only that the people now denominated Native Irish, being the farthest west now, were the farthest west then, but that, sprung from the most primitive division of the Celta, they may be traced as descendants of the ancient Iberi or Cynetæ, if these were not in fact one people speaking, it is probable, kindred dialects. Granting, however, that these terms were dropped, and that the Irish are to be considered as a branch of the great Celtic family, we now briefly notice the light in which they have been thus regarded. In taking a view of the original, or at least the ancient population of Europe, Dr Murray gives a place to the Native Irish, which he carefully preserves throughout both of his volumes. "The primary tribes of Europe are," he says, 66 as is generally known, 1st, The Celta, ancestors of the Irish; 2d, The Cymri, progenitors of the Welsh, Cornish, and Armori Vita Agricola. |